You Make Me Wrong, for Years & Years
by smokingace
Summary: Lavi and Kanda go on a mission together. Lavi is not sure of their relationship after all.


**Title:** You Make Me Wrong, for Years & Years

**Author:** smokingace

**Pairing:** Lavi/Kanda

**Rating:** PG-13

**Disclaimer:** DGM belongs to Hoshino Katsura et al.

&

This is their first year together. And Lavi?

Lavi is scared shitless. He doesn't exactly know what together means, or if Kanda is even thinking about them actually, like him and him, being together, or if Kanda doesn't even give a shit just as much as Lavi is scared shitless.

Anyway, he would have to vote for the latter; Kanda usually doesn't give a shit, and the rest of the time, he likes to give the illusion he doesn't, but when really, he's probably feeling mighty wasted with emotion.

Like now for instance: Lavi is rocking on the balls of his feet and rolling the lollipop between his lips, humming an Italian song he had caught wind of not too long ago during an, um, obscure mission. Of course, he would never tell Kanda where he had heard it from, even when Kanda is busy giving him the loveliest evil eye.

Like now: "You sound like a train wreck," he says, inching away from Lavi on the platform.

Lavi offers him the lollipop against his better judgment. Kanda ignores him.

"C'mon, surprise me a little," Lavi teases, waving the lollipop in Kanda's upturned face. He smiles his most charming smile and wonders if the color had stained his teeth.

Cherry red.

It would have been lemon, but when Lavi had bought it out of a Kanda-induced boredom, he had taken into consideration Kanda's tastes. Unfortunately for him, Kanda has some very odd ones.

Lavi starts to sing under his breath about angels from hell –

_La la la angels flutter my way,_

_One angel ready to play,_

_La, how he smarts,_

_Le, he's an evil one,_

_Lo, I can't figure what he –_

"Heeey," Lavi says, fascinated by the way Kanda has taken the lollipop from him; one swift motion, like it's so easy for Kanda to take advantage. And here Lavi was thinking he's the one who. . .

"Give it here," he says, preparing himself.

Kanda's bottom lip seems to peel away from his teeth, and then the lollipop is in his mouth, sitting where Lavi has thought, very hard in fact, about sitting. Then after moments of people waiting for the train and the train getting there and the boys looking but not looking at each other, Kanda pops the lollipop from his mouth and says, "It's a bit sour." He makes a face halfway between a scrunch and a refined pout, but gives the lollipop back to Lavi.

Lavi notices that Kanda's mouth is cherry red. He thinks, that was fast, and, that if he should die today, he is happy to have seen that perfect, perfect mouth.

Alas, if kissing were an art, my friend, if kissing were an art.

--

The town they ride to is next door to the real town they're sent to, so they decide to run it even though Lavi already has a stitch in his side from laughing so much. Kanda, on the other hand, does not appreciate said laughter, and usually counters it with a slap to the arm. He's gotten past mere verbal discouragement.

Plus, Kanda is surely basking in the glow of being the fastest runner yet.

It's not as if this is a competition, people.

Lavi will let this go until later. First, he must kill.

--

So that brings us to later, to a time when Lavi is kind of regretting letting Kanda let him take over some of the killing. He had thought, surreally, that he would never see winter again. This had scared him. It doesn't scare him now, because Kanda is busy scaring him now, giving him that wild you're-one-fucking-mad-lunatic look. They both take a breath in defending themselves. And then Lavi gives off a charming gutty laugh, totally faking it and wondering if Kanda knows it.

His bottom lip starts to tremble, and his chin starts to do the same, and it haunts his whole face. "Accident," he says, as if this ends things.

Kanda looks at him hard, swatting his shoulder. "I should kill you," he says, all serious-like, all knowing-like.

For a moment, Lavi considers telling him that he knows nothing. Whatsoever.

"Ya got that right," he says instead. He uses his other working hand to touch his lip. It had split and now it bleeds in rivulets onto his throat, coursing back into his veins. He's getting a little tired from all the bloodbaths. He's getting a little tired from the cherry taste on his tongue. On his gums. It's like he brings it on himself, every time.

Accident. Swear.

"You're saying it like I have to believe you."

"Kanda. Believe it, baby."

"It's when you talk like that –"

Lavi raises his eyebrows, knowing it's painful.

"Does it hurt for me to talk like that?" he asks, straight-faced suddenly. He takes Kanda offguard; Kanda's nose flares.

"You're a pain."

"So. I'm in good company."

Kanda slaps the spittle of blood off Lavi's chin. Lavi groans and looks down for a bit of navel gazing wonder. "Whoa."

"Don't move."

"Whoa. That's gotta hurt." That bloody welt all over his stomach.

"I told you, you idiot," Kanda says. He pulls back a fist -

--

Niaow. Niaow. Niaooow.

What did you say?

Ni. . .aow?

"What did you say?" Lavi hears himself asking, mouth moving, ears tingling. He's coming alive again. This is what it feels like, from the fucking heart of him.

He feels something move aside from his mouth. He lies still. The thing moves but doesn't make a sound. Strange.

"The doctor just left the building," the thing says, which brings Lavi to smile despite how much it hurts. "The innkeeper's cat, he's a talker. Git." The cat must be leaving them.

Then it comes to him like another smack. "Did you fucking hit me?" he demands, still smiling. He opens his eye. He can feel the stitches in his other eye like an overseeing mother ghost. They used to be there. Ghosts.

They used to be.

"You had it coming," Kanda says primly, chewing on something tough.

Lavi watches the water stains on the ceiling. "So what did the magic man say? And am I gonna get the chance to eat before I die?" He likes to hear himself say it very lightheartedly; really, he's lying, he hates himself.

Like a ha-ha-hate-myself-till-I-die kind of way. It's ironic, it feels good. He just wants Kanda to get him off.

Oh hell, his loins aren't in a hurry. Great.

They stew in their silent soup, throwing sourness into the pot whenever they keep a distance. Lavi tries to roll over but Kanda won't let him. Kanda tries to blot at a wound that won't stop bleeding but Lavi won't let him.

"Whatever you want," Kanda begins, going back to chewing on that toughness.

"Whatever," Lavi says.

"Whatever."

Maybe to hit him again where it counts, Kanda tells him that Lavi will be out of service for a while. He should go find Bookman. A Finder will take Lavi back to Headquarters. No, don't fucking worry, Kanda's got business elsewhere. It just gets him closer to his goal.

Lavi refrains from asking, what else are we keeping from each other?

He thinks of cherries and realizes that he's been drinking the blood from his gums.

Ain't that a little bizarre? Taking in your own fluids. Ain't that a little bizarre? He figures that it would have been weirder not to like it.

--

"I'm so tired, don't touch me, don't both—bugger off! will ya, eh?" Lavi growls under his breath as the Finder, Henry, grapples for his shoulder.

"I'm getting you there as quickly as I can, sir," Henry says.

"Let me tell ya somethin', Hen-_ry_." It feels like a mouthful; pungent. Full of him.

"Er, yes?" Henry is not falling for it, though, taking a moment to check Lavi's bandages for further signs of failure. He clutches Lavi's side to him and they get closer to Headquarters, missing a pile of manure, a pile of kids out of school. Lavi can hear faint names, faintly telling him where to go. Smoke. They say that, where there's smoke, there's fire. Lavi can say there's hardly any truth in that, if you know what you're doing.

So this Henry, he must know.

"Let me tell you a secret, Hen-_ry_." That again; that mouthful.

"You should save your breath."

Lavi stops midstep, causing Henry to almost trip into a passing woman. Lavi watches her laced shoes walk forever away. He can hear the lace sigh to him. He doesn't even like the ripples in her silk dress. However, Henry does, by the way he keeps it to himself.

They will remember this.

Lavi thinks he should remember something else.

"Henry," he says deliberately this time, ignoring the purple bruise disabling his lip. "Henry? Henry, are ya shy?"

Henry finally looks at him to the side, frowning madly and probably trying not to look like Lavi, an Exorcist, is the cause of it. Though this does no good, because it is obvious who Henry is resembling, like a French version, and Lavi has this rising feeling that Henry used to be a name of someone he used to know. Someone very close.

He thinks, someone too under this skin.

"Sir, just a few more minutes. I'm really sorry we couldn't pull a unit together for you. Are you still with me? A few more minutes. This is most regrettable."

Blah blah blah, young man speaking nice talk.

This makes Lavi laugh anyway. It gets under his skin.

This is most regrettable, is what he would say. (Because it used to drive Gramps mad, you betcha.)

--

A week later and Kanda returns from his other business elsewhere. Kanda thinks he's so worldly. Then he thinks he's so against the world. Then he thinks he's already buried in the world. It goes round and round in Lavi's head and it just keeps making him laugh like this.

The newest matron brings him a vial of something, commenting on his cheer, and Lavi, mistaking it for _cherry_, says, "Here's to clarity in a bottle. Should I be celebratin'?" Who says he's bitter about anything?

She ignores his rudimentary behavior (to her, to _her_) and motions for him to tilt his head back. He grumbles something about her lovely buns (no _not _the ones under her nurse's cap) and she is very clear with where she wants to stick him. He doesn't want her close to him, so he hums that Italian song. Giving up, she lets him have the vial all to himself and goes to tend to that whiny Finder over there.

Not that Lavi hasn't been whining. He's tried very hard to keep it all to himself. Who knows what he might have said.

Dangerous. Like when Kanda walks through the door and comes to stand beside Lavi's bed and looks like he's about to backhand Lavi with only the sneer on his face but instead Kanda only rests his hands forward onto the mattress, shaking his head.

"You're alive," says Kanda in that eating-you-alive kind of way.

"So." Lavi hums deep in his gut.

"So you're alive, what else?"

"What was your business?"

Kanda shakes his head. He lifts his face up and then Lavi can see why it had been down to begin with. Hm. Well, mate.

"That's gotta hurt," Lavi says cheerfully, losing the last bad week to this small comfort.

They watch each other; Kanda's hair is tangled, scratching against the healing flesh along his jawline. Lavi will take a secret guess and _guess _that Kanda had a run in with someone of flesh, someone real and bad. Kanda mustn't feel bad. Oh no, Kanda must feel alive. He's taking longer to survive, sure, but he's here beside Lavi, lip curling to smirk like he's so goddamned effing worldly. Maybe you deserve a trophy, Lavi wants to say.

He doesn't say. He bites his tongue between his teeth, so it sticks out slightly.

Kanda's sneer-smirk gets bigger. They're so out of the way that nobody seems to notice them, going on living, hurt in their sick little world. It feels good, being all compact.

Lavi raises his chin toward Kanda's chin, in a moment of clarity and stupidity, and Kanda stands up straight, clearing his throat. Sounds like someone's got to process first.

"It doesn't hurt at all," he says. (Like the same! Like the same axing voice Lavi had expected on the day that marked their first year together. But he never got that axe or the owner to grant him anything akin to normalcy.)

Lavi's perpetual bout of laughing subsides into the very pit that the last bad week had fallen into, while he thinks on this news. Hm. Hm.

This is most regrettable, he wants to say.

He doesn't laugh again when Kanda grabs his hand and tucks it under the sheet for something to do.


End file.
